India in Transition

About IiT

India in Transition (IiT), allows scholars from all over the world, the opportunity to exchange various analyses and innovative ideas about India's current status and growth. A complete archive of issues is maintained here.

IiT presents brief, analytical perspectives on the ongoing transformations in contemporary India based on cutting-edge research in the areas of economy, environment, foreign policy and security, human capital, science and technology, and society and culture. A Hindi translation accompanies each published article and can be found on CASI's Web site along with related online resources.

In addition to appearing on CASI's website, IiT articles are published in India-based outlets The Hindu: Business Line and Amar Ujala. Past issues have appeared in the op-ed pages of the Indian newspapers, Hindustan, that has nearly 25 million in readership, and in Livemint, an online publication launched in collaboration with The Wall Street Journal. All viewpoints, positions, and conclusions expressed in IiT are solely those of the author(s) and not specifically those of CASI.

Economy

Singapore’s defense minister Ng Eng Hen stated last month that his country wanted India to play a bigger role in the South China Sea. The leaders of Vietnam and the Philippines have also made similar statements in recent years. This “invitation” extended to India by the leaders of Southeast Asia to participate in that region’s security affairs is tantamount to India’s emergence as a great power in Southeast Asia, and by extension, in Asia itself.

The lead up to the UN climate change summit in December 2015 is increasingly peppered with speculation about possible outcomes, globally and for India. In preparation, each country is to submit an “Intended Nationally Determined Contribution” or INDC by the middle of the year, ahead of the conference of parties. The attention is on India, given the emphasis in the current US-India relationship about prioritizing a response to climate change.

Is NREGS suffering a mid life crisis or are we staring at its death? From a budget of INR 401 Billion in 2010-11, it has plummeted to INR 330 Billion in 2013-2014. Given the much higher wages currently offered to workers, it has taken a serious hit. The position taken by government officials (and many economists) is that there is a general lack of interest in NREGS. The rise in agricultural real wages over the period 2004-05 to 2011-12, coupled with a general dismay regarding quality of assets produced and evidence of corruption, has led to a call for a scaling down of NREGS.

The drastic increase in trade volumes over the last few years is an impressive testament to the new Indian pivot to Sub-Saharan Africa; trade between India and Sub-Saharan Africa stood at $60 billion in 2012. Still, trade volumes in the same year were markedly eclipsed by those of the EU ($567.2 billion), the U.S. ($446.7 billion), and China ($220 billion). Nevertheless, India’s engagement shows a successful new focus on the region where it has implemented specific programs in the economic, political, and, especially, pan-African sphere.

The outbreak of conflict in South Sudan last December led to the shut down of India’s multi-billion dollar oil project in the young country. The instability sent Indian diplomats scrambling to play damage control as ONGC Videsh Ltd. (OVL), the international arm of India’s national oil company, was forced to evacuate its personnel from the region. Competition from China is often regarded as the biggest challenge for India in acquiring global oil resources.

Do parties and their local agents condition access to government services and benefits from government welfare schemes on how voters vote or are expected to vote? This political strategy, which social scientists refer to as clientelism, depends on a massive investment in local leaders who collect information on voters’ party preferences, vote choices and intentions, as well as which inducements will convince voters to support their party at the polls. This strategy also importantly depends upon the credible threat of punishment when a voter is found to vote the wrong way.

In 1993, shortly after the discovery of the largest scam in the history of the Indian capital markets, the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) banned the use of badla. The badla mechanism, which allowed trades to be carried forward without settlement, based on borrowed shares or cash, had already attracted criticism from such disparate sources as the International Finance Commission and the then-esteemed firm of Arthur Andersen.

If globalization is a game, India would seem to be one of its winners. The past decade has seen India record impressive economic growth and move into fast-moving high tech sectors. Nowhere is this transition more apparent than in information and communication technology (ICT). While China has made a name for itself making ICT hardware, India is known for its prowess in software. Multinational corporations from Microsoft to Adobe have set up R&D centers in India, while home-grown firms like Infosys and Wipro have taken advantage of the outsourcing boom to become global players.

Can coalition governments in India be stable? And if so, can they undertake economic reforms and, more generically, policies that have short-term political costs but only long-term benefits? And if they do so, can they remain stable?

Primary wholesale markets, or mandis, are critical nodes in India’s agricultural marketing and distribution system. As such, they are key elements of contention in vital debates regarding the future of Indian agriculture, the challenges of ensuring food security and managing food inflation, and to growing questions about the character and control of the nation’s diversifying foodways.